


Price of Time

by Cecelia2046, sissannis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Sirimione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 00:44:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12619264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cecelia2046/pseuds/Cecelia2046, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sissannis/pseuds/sissannis
Summary: An impromptu time turner fic that Cecelia started on tumblr to celebrate Sirius Black's birthday and I continued and then she took her turn then I then she then I then...





	Price of Time

**Author's Note:**

> \- In which there's a Time-Turner.  
> \- Turns out Time is a man. In a black suit with a tired and mean expression, like he’d just gotten off the shift.
> 
> Happy Birthday, Sirius Black. Our beloved man.

\- So there’s a time turner, alright?  
\- Turns out Time is a man. In a black suit with a tired and mean expression, like he’d just gotten off the night shift.

* * *

 - Hermione was worried about physics. The consequences or the lack of consequences of her actions in 1979.  
\- Time told her that she had a choice.  
\- Of course she could change things. No one was stopping her. But she’d have to _disappear_ from this world since she didn’t belong. She’d never belong. Staying was not an option.  
\- Or she could just sit back and complete the loop. Let them die. Let them burn.  
\- Time appeared everyday to remind her that it was pertinent to make a choice. The clock was ticking.  
\- “Who were you talking to?” Sirius asked. He was young. He was happier than she remembered. He didn’t trust her. He looked at her with a steely look in his grey eyes.  
\- “Mind your own business, Black,” she said.  
\- It’d been 47 days since her arrival.

* * *

\- For the longest time, she remembered what Dumbledore had told her the night she used Time to free Buckbeak and Sirius. “Mysterious thing, Time. Powerful, and when meddled with, dangerous.”  
- _Dangerous_.  
\- Time, though old and worn, managed a smug smirk. “Your choice.”  
\- She decided she would _not_ change a thing. She would _not_ meddle with the old, powerful sentient.  
\- But the next day came and she saw him. James Potter. And she fell to her knees, mouth agape, eyes wide open, confused. _Undecided_.  
\- And Time? Time looked down at her with the smirk that Hermione had learn to hate.  
\- “Are you alright?” The red-haired girl asked her. And the red was blazing, fiery, blinding her unsure eyes until she traced down to her eyes. The bright green eyes.  
\- She made her decision.

* * *

\- Sirius Black disagreed with her every decision. Sirius Black thought she was a nutter because she sometimes talked to herself. Sirius Black was infuriating.  
\- Sirius Black fucked her against a wall after she took a slicing hex for James and ended up getting her left arm messed up.  
\- Sirius Black stared at her in Order meetings as if she was a bomb with unknown timing devices.  
\- “I know people who have self-destructive tendencies, alright? Don’t expect me to be your boyfriend or something. I just wanted to give you something to live for.”  
\- She laughed so hard she cried.  
\- Sirius Black was cute. He thought _he_ was the one with commitment issues.

* * *

\- It was day 96 and all she could think of was, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan...  
\- She needed a plan. But as the days passed, she cursed him. Damn him for constantly staring at her from across the table.  
\- Damn him for taking hexes that were meant for her.  
\- Damn him for making her re-think her decision.  
\- They were on his bed. He was sleeping, arm tightly wound around her waist, as though he knew she’d leave him. As though he didn’t want her to.  
\- She placed her hand on top of his and cried that night. Because fuck you, Sirius Black. Fuck you.  
\- Time was always there, standing quietly in the corner.  
\- She hated him.

* * *

\- Time was a bitch. He took her to the future to observe possible scenarios.  
\- She was standing in a corner when Sirius said his vows to a woman she couldn’t recognize.  
\- “Dashing, isn’t he?” Time said. “I wonder how you died this time. He seems to be moving on quickly, won’t you say? I bet you guys broke up first.”  
\- “You’re so annoying.”  
\- “I’ll take that as a compliment, you little shit.”  
\- She didn’t mind. She just observed his wedding. She thought it was nice.  
\- She was only a little bit sad.  
\- “Show me another one.”

* * *

\- They stood under the big tree, hidden from the mass of witches and wizards.  
\- It was someone’s funeral. Hermione could hear her pounding heart, too loud, too clear as she closed her eyes and asked, “Tell me it’s not his. please, I beg you. Please — ”  
\- “It’s his.”  
\- She leaned on the tree for support and she listened as each of them took their turn to praise him, recalling all of his good deeds and all of his mischief. Saying that they would miss the kind soul that was Sirius Black.  
\- “He was loved. He grew old — ” Time pointed his thin finger to a grey-haired woman “ — with that lady. With kids and all the happiness that he deserved.”  
\- She knew it was a good thing, but she couldn’t stop the tears from rolling.  
\- “Your choice.”

* * *

\- They were in a muggle concert crowd. She thought for a second that this was Time’s break for her until she looked up and there was a huge screen capturing the audience, and there he was with his little girl sitting on his shoulders.  
\- He was in his 30s, maybe. He was sharper and softer at the same time. It was hard to explain. Like he wasn't angry anymore. Like he had made peace with all the pain and loss, but still had so much vibrant energy and love to offer to this world.  
\- And then the screen cut to another angle. Time was complaining about the noise and crowd and other meaningless shit.  
\- She didn’t realize that she was crying.

* * *

\- He’d tried to catch her eyes and when he finally did, he was taken aback. The deep brown that he loved darkened, lost, dead.  
\- He avoided her eyes.  
\- He noticed that her waist had gotten smaller.  
\- He noticed that she had slept lesser.  
\- He noticed she had become her old self, when she was unsure, when she was trying so hard to not fall for him, and he knew, he fucking knew she had. She’d fallen for him.  
\- They fucked but he avoided her eyes vehemently. He could feel her stare, as if she was trying to study his face— cataloguing its shapes and lines — and he hated it.  
\- “Sirius,” she called when she came and it was the best fucking melody he ever heard. She was everything and nothing at the same time. He hated it.  
\- He came and finally looked at her, and he cried. Damn this woman for making Sirius Black cry. He hated it.  
\- He hated the fact that she’d been playing with the chain around her slender neck more and more and more and more and more and more...

* * *

\- They were ambushed. He took out his emergency portkey but Dolohov sent a _reducto_ his way. He lost it in the following mess of debris and ashes.  
\- She threw her portkey on him just before Dolohov’s _Avada_ arrived.  
\- “Nononononono — ”  
\- She was missing for a week. He was mad. He couldn’t sleep. He snapped at everyone. He swore he would kill her once they found her. He refused to believe that she might be dead already, despite what Moody or Dumbledore or Marlene said.  
\- And then she appeared with blood everywhere and new scars and she wanted to see Dumbledore right away about something she destroyed and she pushed the Healer’s hands away and he just stood there frozen because she was _beautiful_ — beautiful in a way he couldn’t possibly understand.  
\- Faraway he heard a clock ticking. Suddenly he knew that she was leaving. She was leaving and he couldn’t do anything about it, because he just didn't — couldn't — wouldn't understand.  
\- He backed out of the room without a word.

* * *

\- “Tick tock tick tock tick tock,” Time mocked her, “Time is running out, little one.”  
\- She was fidgeting and anxious of Dumbledore’s reaction. She tightened her grip on the cursed necklace, the Horcrux.  
\- “Horcruxes?” Dumbledore repeated. She glanced at Time — who was studying his non-existent nails — then met Dumbledore’s wary eyes again. He looked defeated and Hermione didn’t like it. She didn’t come for him to act all defeated. She came to stop this war. She started pouring out all the informations about Voldemort’s horcruxes that she could recall.  
\- This wasn’t how she planned to leave.  
\- She left the broken horcrux with Dumbledore and ran after Sirius.  
\- She wanted to see him.  
\- She wanted to hold him.  
\- She wanted to kiss him.  
\- She stopped running midway — wondering — what would she tell him, anyway? Was it wise to talk to him now, or just to leave?  
\- “Disappear. Boom. Gone.” Time corrected her.  
\- “Will… Will he remember?”  
\- “You’re the one who’s good with _Obliviate_ , my child.” Time stood behind her, towering over her small form, and waved his bony hand to where Sirius was, “Your choice.”

* * *

\- “Dear Sirius,” she wrote. “I’m leaving. I’m sorry for this, but I don’t want to say goodbye. The truth is, I’m a selfish person. I don’t want this to end, but it’s out of my hands. Well, it was in my hands, but once the choice was made, I became a feather to fate, just like you.”  
\- She loved him in a desperate way.  
\- “I firmly believe in a better future because of people like you, like James and Remus, like Lily. I believe that this war is not about us. It’s about hundreds of thousands of children out there somewhere who have no idea what’s happening right now, and what we have been doing all this time is for them to never know.”  
\- She loved him like she was born to, like she felt all of his past and present and future washing over her and drowning her, like a kiss in fire.  
\- “Whatever this thing we have is, I’m grateful. Keep fighting, Sirius. Keep loving. Keep moving on. This world is so big, yet time is endless. I want to say we’ll meet again someday, but all I have is faith.”  
\- Her wand disappeared. She looked up at Time. “Already?”  
\- Time shrugged. “You expect a farewell party?”  
\- “My faith will forever be with you until the very end.”  
\- I love you.  
\- “PS. I bet you’ll love Oasis one day.”  
\- He came back to his room that night only to find a letter on his desk, half-folded.  
\- It’d been 374 days since she arrived and one day since she left.

* * *

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Midnightweeds, for fixing us! We were such a mess! x


End file.
